Telling a Healthy Chick From a Weak One in Ghana

Two minutes at the box, before anything else

The lid comes off, the peeping rises, and you have a short window to judge the chicks before they are shuffled around by hands and stress. Use it. The first look tells you more than the next three weeks of worry.

Lift a few chicks gently from the top, middle and bottom of the box. Chicks at the bottom are often cold rather than weak, because they have been pressed together for the whole journey. Hold them for a moment in your hand, then put them back. A cold chick warms up in the brooder. A weak one does not.

Do not pick up the same chick twice. Handling stresses it, and you will end up judging the stress rather than the chick. The same first look applies whether the chicks are locally hatched or imported, and our page on imported day-old chicks explains where the stock comes from.

Eyes, beak and how the chick behaves

A healthy chick holds its head up, opens its eyes wide, and reacts when you tap the box or move your hand. The eyes should be bright and clear, without crusting or a sticky film. Look at the beak too. It should close neatly. A crossed beak, where the upper and lower parts do not meet, stops the chick feeding properly, so it is worth spotting on arrival.

Listen to the peeping. A settled brood makes a steady, contented sound. A loud, continuous, high cry means distress, usually from cold, hunger or a draught. A brood that has gone quiet is not better, either. Quiet chicks that will not stand are the ones to worry about.

A weak chick often sits with its eyes half closed and its head resting on the floor of the box. It may not respond to your hand, or it staggers when it tries to stand.

The navel and the yolk sac

This is the single most useful check, and most farmers skip it. The chick absorbs the yolk sac before hatch and carries a small remnant into its first days. That remnant should sit inside the body, and the navel should be closed, dry and clean.

Gently part the feathers on the belly and look. A healthy navel is closed and dry, with no redness, no wet or sticky patch and no bleeding. A navel that is still open, red, swollen or wet points to a poor hatch or a bacterial problem that will not improve on its own. A large, soft, unabsorbed yolk showing as a bulge under the belly is a bad sign too, and it usually goes with a weaker chick.

Do not press the belly to hunt for a yolk. Look, and let the chick go.

Legs, hocks and joints

Legs should be straight, with the toes spread and the hocks in line under the body. A chick that stands on bent or swollen joints, drags one leg, or sits back on its hocks has a problem that may show up again in the first weeks.

Look for splayed legs, where the chick cannot keep its legs under its body and they slide out sideways. The cause is usually a slippery floor or a leg that did not develop well, and it is hard to correct once it has started. A chick that cannot stand on the first try may just be stunned. Give it ten minutes in a warm box, then test it again. A healthy chick usually rights itself almost at once.

Joints that look red or thickened can be an infection. Set those chicks aside and tell your supplier the same day.

Feathers, weight and body feel

Feathers tell you about the journey. Dry, fluffy down means the chick was kept warm and dry. Wet or matted feathers mean it has been chilled, or that a leaking box soaked it. Chicks that are wet on arrival need dry heat and a dry box before anything else.

If you are comparing strains, the breed guide shows how each one differs in size. Weight is useful in a rough way. Most commercial broiler chicks weigh somewhere around 40 grams, and layer chicks are often a little lighter. Within one box, the chicks should look and feel alike. If a few are clearly lighter than the rest in the hand, they are more likely to struggle, and they are the ones to watch in the first week. A small hand scale is enough to show you the spread, so you compare chicks rather than guess.

The body should feel warm and firm. Cold, limp chicks that feel light and papery are in trouble. A swollen or hard belly is not a good sign either.

Healthy and weak side by side

Use this table as the quick reference you check against at the box. Any single sign can be a knock from transport. Two or more together, across several chicks, is a reason to call your supplier.

A clean vent on arrival is the normal state. If you find a pasted one, our guide to pasty butt in chicks covers what to do next.

Cold chicks are not always weak chicks

This is where farmers make the most expensive mistake: they write off a chick that was merely cold. A chick that comes out of a box after a long drive can look dreadful for twenty minutes, then stand, peep and eat within a few hours in a properly warm brooder.

The test is what happens after warming. Put the suspect chicks in a small, warm box under a lamp, with a little water and feed close by, and check again after half an hour and then after two hours. If they are standing and drinking, they were cold. If they are still hunched, cold to the touch, or getting weaker, they were weak to begin with. For how the first hours of brooding should be set up, see our brooder ring guide.

Keep a note of the numbers. If you can see the difference between the chicks that recover and the ones that do not, you have something concrete to show your supplier, and something to compare against the next box.

Counting on arrival and what to send us

Count the chicks before you sign anything, and before the box goes anywhere near the brooder. Count live chicks and dead chicks separately, and write both numbers on the delivery note or in your book.

Dead on arrival chicks are replaced free in the next hatch, and that only works if the count is clear and the photo is sent the same day. Lay the dead chicks out on a plain surface, take one photo with the box label visible if you can, and send it on WhatsApp to +233 24 915 1503. Put the live and dead counts in the message. Do not wait until the next morning, because by then the chicks no longer look the way they did when they arrived.

If you are in Kasoa, our Kasoa page shows the local options. When you place your next order, the order form takes you through the breed and box size. If you collect from the farm yourself, do the count at the gate. The same rule applies. Our delivery page explains how boxes travel to each region, and the delivery cost is confirmed before you pay.

Mistakes we see at the box

• Picking the loudest chick as the healthiest. Loud peeping can be distress. Look for the chick that holds its head up and responds, whether it is making noise or not.
• Judging by size alone. A big chick with an open navel is a worse buy than a smaller one with a closed, dry navel.
• Opening the box in wind or rain. Chicks cool in seconds in a draught. Check indoors or in a sheltered place.
• Handling every chick. Check a sample and the chicks that look wrong. Handling the whole box stresses everyone, including you.
• Skipping the count. Without a count on arrival, a replacement claim is much harder to prove. Our notes on chick mortality in transit explain where most of those losses come from.
• Blaming the feed on day one. A chick that is weak on arrival is usually a transport or hatch question. The feed can wait until the chick has drunk.

A checklist to use at the box

Print this or copy it into your record book. It takes about ten minutes for a box of 50, and it is ten minutes well spent.

1. Open the box indoors or somewhere sheltered, and count live and dead chicks.
2. Take a photo of any dead chicks before you move them.
3. Lift chicks from the top, middle and bottom of the box, and note any that are wet, cold or limp.
4. Check each sampled chick's eyes, beak and activity.
5. Part the belly feathers and look at the navel. Note any that are open, red or wet.
6. Watch each suspect chick stand or roll upright, and give it ten minutes in a warm box if it is slow.
7. Check the feathers, and weigh a few chicks in your hand against each other.
8. Put the chicks under the lamp, with water and feed close by.
9. Recheck the suspect chicks after one hour, and again the next morning.
10. Send the count and photo to +233 24 915 1503 the same day if anything is wrong.

For the first night after this, read our guide to preventing chick piling. A weak chick and a piling brood often show up together, and the same night checks catch both.

Questions farmers ask